I did it again. I promised myself that I wouldn't do it, but I did it anyway.
I skipped another week of posting.
The good news is that last week/weekend was spent sick in bed studying and taking midterms, so there wasn't a lot to talk about anyway. This past week was spent exploring a little and this past weekend was spent in Poland!
I skipped another week of posting.
The good news is that last week/weekend was spent sick in bed studying and taking midterms, so there wasn't a lot to talk about anyway. This past week was spent exploring a little and this past weekend was spent in Poland!
So, as you now know, I was very sick the weekend of the 18th. I'll skip details. Just know that I had a very relaxing time. The following weekdays were spent taking midterms which weren't as dreadful as we all made them out to be. History was easy for me considering the multitude of history classes I took in high school. Ethics was only an essay that we had multiple days to work on and Intercultural was a breeze, as always.
A few friends and I took a side trip to the East Side Gallery midterm week, which was pretty awesome. It's basically just a section of the wall that artists painted up. Here's some pictures for those that didn't see them on Facebook:
A few friends and I took a side trip to the East Side Gallery midterm week, which was pretty awesome. It's basically just a section of the wall that artists painted up. Here's some pictures for those that didn't see them on Facebook:
This past Friday, Bailie, Will, and I left for Poland at 11pm. We arrived around 6:30am in Krakow. For me, it was fairly easy to sleep on the bus. Probably because of those 11 hour car rides to NY. Once we got to the bus station, we had NO idea where to go. I don't know a lick of Polish, so I was no longer a help in regard to the language barrier. We spent about 10 minutes walking around with our luggage throughout the streets until we were approached by a little old lady. The next chain of events is the kindest act I've encountered since I've been here.
She asked us something in Polish, we said "English", she shook her head and said something else in Polish. Thinking she would be able to just simply point us in the right direction, we showed her the address and she motions us to follow her and continues to lead us back through the bus station to the completely other side. She asks multiple people on the street where our hostel was. They all probably think she's crazy at this point. She finds someone who knew where it was and he points us in the right direction. The only English word he knew was "street." After probably 45 minutes, we found our hostel. I wish I could've thanked her. She did so much more than she had to and could've easily just gave up and let us walk away. THANK YOU, OLD WOMAN!
We walked around for a little while after dropping off our luggage, got breakfast and just took our own little tour. Here's some pictures of our section of Krakow!
FUN FACT: Their alcohol stores are called Alkoholes.
She asked us something in Polish, we said "English", she shook her head and said something else in Polish. Thinking she would be able to just simply point us in the right direction, we showed her the address and she motions us to follow her and continues to lead us back through the bus station to the completely other side. She asks multiple people on the street where our hostel was. They all probably think she's crazy at this point. She finds someone who knew where it was and he points us in the right direction. The only English word he knew was "street." After probably 45 minutes, we found our hostel. I wish I could've thanked her. She did so much more than she had to and could've easily just gave up and let us walk away. THANK YOU, OLD WOMAN!
We walked around for a little while after dropping off our luggage, got breakfast and just took our own little tour. Here's some pictures of our section of Krakow!
FUN FACT: Their alcohol stores are called Alkoholes.
We went to sleep early that night. Sunday we woke up early to go on our guided tours. We started out with Auschwitz and Birkenau, then went to the salt mine.
*WARNING* I'm about to start to go into quite a bit of detail about the concentration camps, so if the topic makes you uncomfortable, I suggest that you skip to where I have bolded the words "salt mine."
*WARNING* I'm about to start to go into quite a bit of detail about the concentration camps, so if the topic makes you uncomfortable, I suggest that you skip to where I have bolded the words "salt mine."
You are a brave soul for continuing reading. First of all, I would like to say that this visit left a permanent mark on me. I'm not going to hold much back about it because I feel that the way we learn about it in school doesn't put it into perspective what-so-ever, no matter how much we would like to believe it does. I'm just going to state the facts and hopefully you are able to take away something from it, whatever that may be.
There were 2 camps where we went. Auschwitz, which was previously used for military barracks, and Birkenau, a place that was basically built for killing. Auschwitz was quite large. 28 housing units. 700-1000 per building. Birkenau was even larger. The buildings people lived in were essentially barns. Many victims spent their work time building more of these buildings, others in kitchens or doing other manual labor. Nazis tried to cover their tracks by bombing some of the barns, but the bombing didn't destroy the chimneys. One of the pictures I took shows this. Just a field of chimneys.
I say "victims" because it wasn't exclusively Jews in these camps. It was anyone who opposed or didn't "fit" in the Nazi society. This included not only Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies, and the disabled. There is a picture of all of the prosthetics that were taken from people. There are actually many pictures of belongings that were taken. There is one picture that is all kitchen ware. I was sort of surprised that these people brought pots and pans with then until our tour guide explained it. So, here's how the mechanics essentially went:
The persecuted were told that they were being evacuated and relocated to work (which is why they brought all of their things). They arrived in places like Birkenau, where they were sorted. They were classified as either fit or unfit to work. The elderly, most women, children, and the disabled were determined "unfit" and were sent directly to gas chambers for a "shower." The children were allowed to be accompanied by their mothers, but this was only to prevent panic. The ones who were fit to work were stripped of their belongings, tattooed, undressed, shaved, showered, put it uniforms, and housed. Harsh, I know.
The living conditions were insane. 700-1000 people per building. 5-7 per bunk. One wash room per building, only to be used at assigned times. 3 meals a day of either soup OR bread with marmalade. Punishment cells in the basement essentially designed to suffocate. There were some called standing cells in which 5 people crawled into and spent the night standing. Some only lived a night in the camps, let alone the cells. The average was about 3 months. The pictures should speak for themselves.
One thing that I wasn't aware of were the experiments. Doctors injected diseases into victims to test cures that never really worked, leaving thousands sick with things like typhus. Disease spread like crazy because of the close living quarters.
The last thing I want to say is the one thing that hit me hardest. This fact is the sheer amount of people that were killed. But I'm not going to give you a number. I could say any number and one would just think "Wow that's a lot."
Instead of a number, I want to measure it in hair. 2 tons of it.
2 tons of hair is on display at Auschwitz and that's not even all of it. At the beginning of the war, horse hair was used to stiffen military uniforms because it was the cheapest. As the war progressed, human hair became the cheapest option... I didn't have the heart to even take a picture of the display. I pulled one off the internet to post here, though.
Here's the majority of the pictures. The hair display is about half way through:
There were 2 camps where we went. Auschwitz, which was previously used for military barracks, and Birkenau, a place that was basically built for killing. Auschwitz was quite large. 28 housing units. 700-1000 per building. Birkenau was even larger. The buildings people lived in were essentially barns. Many victims spent their work time building more of these buildings, others in kitchens or doing other manual labor. Nazis tried to cover their tracks by bombing some of the barns, but the bombing didn't destroy the chimneys. One of the pictures I took shows this. Just a field of chimneys.
I say "victims" because it wasn't exclusively Jews in these camps. It was anyone who opposed or didn't "fit" in the Nazi society. This included not only Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies, and the disabled. There is a picture of all of the prosthetics that were taken from people. There are actually many pictures of belongings that were taken. There is one picture that is all kitchen ware. I was sort of surprised that these people brought pots and pans with then until our tour guide explained it. So, here's how the mechanics essentially went:
The persecuted were told that they were being evacuated and relocated to work (which is why they brought all of their things). They arrived in places like Birkenau, where they were sorted. They were classified as either fit or unfit to work. The elderly, most women, children, and the disabled were determined "unfit" and were sent directly to gas chambers for a "shower." The children were allowed to be accompanied by their mothers, but this was only to prevent panic. The ones who were fit to work were stripped of their belongings, tattooed, undressed, shaved, showered, put it uniforms, and housed. Harsh, I know.
The living conditions were insane. 700-1000 people per building. 5-7 per bunk. One wash room per building, only to be used at assigned times. 3 meals a day of either soup OR bread with marmalade. Punishment cells in the basement essentially designed to suffocate. There were some called standing cells in which 5 people crawled into and spent the night standing. Some only lived a night in the camps, let alone the cells. The average was about 3 months. The pictures should speak for themselves.
One thing that I wasn't aware of were the experiments. Doctors injected diseases into victims to test cures that never really worked, leaving thousands sick with things like typhus. Disease spread like crazy because of the close living quarters.
The last thing I want to say is the one thing that hit me hardest. This fact is the sheer amount of people that were killed. But I'm not going to give you a number. I could say any number and one would just think "Wow that's a lot."
Instead of a number, I want to measure it in hair. 2 tons of it.
2 tons of hair is on display at Auschwitz and that's not even all of it. At the beginning of the war, horse hair was used to stiffen military uniforms because it was the cheapest. As the war progressed, human hair became the cheapest option... I didn't have the heart to even take a picture of the display. I pulled one off the internet to post here, though.
Here's the majority of the pictures. The hair display is about half way through:
So that's really all I have to say about that…
SALT MINE!
After Auschwitz we went to one of the largest salt mines in Europe, the Wieliczka mine. We had to buy a ticket in order to take picture, which I didn't do so please look up pictures of it!! It's pretty cool. It's not operational so most of it is just for show, but you can actually get married in the ballroom there! It's operational only through water (they drain out brine and extract the salt elsewhere), but it was definitely worth the visit.
Once that was over, we went back to the hostel for a bit, got dinner, and went to sleep. The next day we went to Krakus Mound. It is supposedly where King Krakus is buried and a dragon is said to have lived there. THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW. Legend aside, it provided a pretty impressive view of the city. I'm just satisfied to say I stood on Krakus Mound. It sounds funny.
The rest of Monday we walked around, visited shops, and sat outside at cafes. It was a very nice day out. We left around 10:30 and got back to Berlin yesterday.
Here's the Krakus Mound pictures:
SALT MINE!
After Auschwitz we went to one of the largest salt mines in Europe, the Wieliczka mine. We had to buy a ticket in order to take picture, which I didn't do so please look up pictures of it!! It's pretty cool. It's not operational so most of it is just for show, but you can actually get married in the ballroom there! It's operational only through water (they drain out brine and extract the salt elsewhere), but it was definitely worth the visit.
Once that was over, we went back to the hostel for a bit, got dinner, and went to sleep. The next day we went to Krakus Mound. It is supposedly where King Krakus is buried and a dragon is said to have lived there. THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW. Legend aside, it provided a pretty impressive view of the city. I'm just satisfied to say I stood on Krakus Mound. It sounds funny.
The rest of Monday we walked around, visited shops, and sat outside at cafes. It was a very nice day out. We left around 10:30 and got back to Berlin yesterday.
Here's the Krakus Mound pictures:
I don't wanna come home, but there are only 18 days left. Are you excited yet, mom? I miss you too, don't worry. <3
Finals are coming up next week, wish me luck! I'll write to you all again once finals are over.
Have an awesome week, everyone!
Finals are coming up next week, wish me luck! I'll write to you all again once finals are over.
Have an awesome week, everyone!